


Bright Morning Stars

by aderyn



Series: Compounds or Stars [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221b, Gen, Post Reichenbach, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it, deleted it, more stars than the Milky Way (!), pre-Reichenbach/post-Reichenbach/reunion sandwich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:06:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Gaze streetward, forearms contracted, Sherlock hasn’t moved for more than an hour: The upper end of the ulna is shaped like a crescent. There are star-shaped pigment cells in the human eye."</p>
<p>"Oh, for the dead reckoning he learnt as a child."</p>
<p>221B is a two-body problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Morning Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title and part of the first line from “Bright Morning Stars”, an American traditional song probably originating in Kentucky; it’s often sung a cappella and is beautiful, I think. Here are some versions: 
> 
> [The Wailin' Jennys](http://youtu.be/9Fq6lCcAkpU)
> 
> [ Tribute to the Wailin' Jenny's version](http://youtu.be/xbAwRnrKuKA)
> 
> [Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings](http://youtu.be/4PVGlWKXMLU)

 

Bright morning stars are rising over the rooftops of Baker Street. Gaze streetward, forearms contracted, Sherlock hasn’t moved for more than an hour: _The upper end of the ulna is shaped like a crescent_. _There are star-shaped pigment cells in the human eye._  It’s all on his watch.  

Upstairs, far from capricious laser sights, indigo glimmers on the surfaces of pools, the fiery eyes of drug-dream dogs, the freakish diasters of dimly-lit labs, John sleeps.

***

Virgo rises over London, over planetariums and painted supernovas,over the traitorous mica-flecked rooftop of St. Bart’s.  

John, alone by laptop-light, sways in the ecliptic of the blank page.  

_Well we were a pair, weren’t we?_ he types _: **Not-Luminous**_ _and **Brilliant**.   **Conductor** and_ **_Light._**

Oh, for all the city’s neon prismed in the windows of their cabs, the lit ends of secret cigarettes, a slice of Milky Way through a railway arch,Cygnus with its northern cross.

***

There’s the slick, visceral shine of the tracks at Baker Street station, his glassware shining on the kitchen table, the violin with its selkie sheen, the starlight sharding on the Thames’ runoff--

Oh,for the dead reckoning he learnt as a child.  Every astrocyte has gone electric.

***

221B is a two-body problem that can’t be solved with a lockpick and a smile—but still they’re strung in orbit, bright.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bright Morning Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/460032) by [dee-light (DraloreShimare)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraloreShimare/pseuds/dee-light)




End file.
